FilmMaker: The Magazine for Independent Film

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New Faces

RYAN GOSLING – actor

Thanks for article goes to Stacey

At the center of Henry Bean’s The Believer, a psychological portrait of a Jewish neo-Nazi that won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is the stunning lead performance by Ryan Gosling. Simmering and intense, he is able to imbue a character you might otherwise despise with a wounded humanity.

Gosling seemed to come out of nowhere. Well, not exactly nowhere. At six, in London, Ontario, he had a small act as an Elvis impersonator. Then at 12, he hit the big time, beating out 17,000 hopefuls for a part on The Mickey Mouse Club. For two years he performed with other young hopefuls such as Keri Russell and Britney Spears as a singing citizen of the Magic Kingdom. Returning to Canada, he spent his adolescence popping in and out of various teen TV shows, from The Adventures of Shirley Holmes to Goosebumps to an ongoing role on Breaker High. Finally leaving Canada for Hollywood, he landed the starring role on Young Hercules.

Despite all of his acting experience, though, Gosling didn’t know if he could get the lead The Believer. “When a script like that comes along in Los Angeles with a part for a 25-year-old, every actor comes out. But I felt if I could just get in to read, I would be very good. As it turned out, I was the last kid. And even though they needed a name actor, I think they were just tired of casting.” Although the character is a far cry from his previous work, Gosling felt connected to the film’s theme: “The movie for me was just about faith. He was choking on faith. It could really be about anyone living a contradiction. I identified with that; I saw beauty in the idea of beings so weak.”

Those who marvel at Gosling’s performance in The Believer can look forward to two more notable turns --- as an alienated teenage football payer in Alex and Andrew Smith’s The Slaughter Rule and playing opposite Michael Pitt in Barbet Schroeder’s Fool Proof, a film Gosling describes as “a retelling of the Loeb and Leopold case in which two boys attempt to commit the perfect crime.

” But after that Gosling will disappear for a while. He is traveling back to Canada with his best friend, Mike Warner, to write a movie that he plans to direct in the future.

--- Peter Bowen

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